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THE BOISTEROUS GAME by Yu Hua In a street-corner vending kiosk that sells groceries and fruit, a tired and sagging face spends year after year in the company of cookies, instant noodles, candies, tobacco, and cans of soda, like an old calendar stuck on the wall. A body and limbs are attached to this face, along with the name Lin Deshun. Lin Deshun sat in a wheelchair, looking through the tiny window in front of him at the street outside. A young couple was standing on the sidewalk opposite, with a little boy between them who looked to be about six or seven. The boy was wearing a heavy down jacket and a red hat, and a scarf just as red was tied around his neck. Although it was now the season of spring balminess and flower blossoms, the boy was dressed for winter's cold. |
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Su Xinping, |
Just next to the spot where the three of them were standing was the entrance to a hospital. They stood quietly amid the commotion of people going in and out. The father, hands in his pockets, gazed fixedly at the hospital, and his wife, her right hand holding the boy's left hand, was looking toward the hospital entrance with equal concentration. It was only the boy whose eyes were turned in the direction of the street. With his mother clasping his hand, he had to twist himself around to look, but his eyes dwelled avidly on the street before him. His head was continually moving about, and he often lifted his right hand up in the air, pointing something out to them. It was clear that there was no end of things he wanted to tell his parents, but they just stood there like statues.
After a little while, the parents led the boy a few steps closer to the hospital entrance, and Lin Deshun saw that a rather plump nurse was approaching them. They all came to a stop, and began to talk, but the boy maintained his sideways stance, his eyes glued to the street.
When the nurse had finished speaking, she went back into the hospital. The boy's parents turned around and, each taking the boy by the hand, cautiously walked across the street and arrived outside Lin Deshun's kiosk. The father released his grip on his son's hand, walked up to the window, and took a look inside. Lin Deshun saw a face covered with stubble, a pair of eyes swollen from lack of sleep, and the grubby collar of a white shirt. He asked: "Can I help you?"
Looking at the tangerines that were displayed directly in front, the man said: "Give me a tangerine."
"One tangerine?" Lin Deshun thought he had misheard.
The father reached out a hand and took a tangerine: "How much?"
Lin Deshun thought for a moment and said, "Let's say twenty cents."
When the man's hand laid twenty cents on the counter, Lin Deshun saw that several threads from his sweater protruded from his sleeve.
The father turned around after buying the tangerine to find that mother and son were holding hands and playing a game on the sidewalk. The son was trying to stomp on the mother's foot, and she kept dodging him. The mother was saying, "You can't get me, you can't get me...."
The son said, "I'm going to get you, I'm going to get you...."
The father stood to one side, tangerine in hand, watching their boisterous game, until finally the son stepped on his mother's foot and gave a triumphant cry: "I got you!"
That was when the father said, "Come and have some tangerine."
Lin Deshun got a clear view of the boy's face. When the boy raised his head to take the tangerine from his father, Lin Deshun saw a pair of luminous dark eyes, but the boy's face was frighteningly paleeven his lips were practically as white as chalk.
Then they were just as quiet as they had been when standing on the other side of the street. The boy peeled the tangerine and, as he ate, walked off with one of his parents on either side.
Lin Deshun knew that they had come to register their child as an inpatient, but today no bed had become available, so now they were going back home.
On the following morning, Lin Deshun saw them again, standing by the entrance to the hospital as they had the day before. What was different was that this time only the father was gazing in the direction of the hospital, while mother and son, hand in hand, were happily playing that boisterous game of theirs. From his side of the street, Lin Deshun could hear them calling:
"You can't get me, you can't get me...."
"I'm going to get you, I'm going to get you...."
Their cries were full of delight, as if they were on a lawn in a park, not at the hospital gate. The boy's voice was crisp and clear, instantly recognizable amid the assorted sounds of the people at the entrance to the hospital and the clamor of vehicles in the street.
"I'm going to get you, I'm going to get you...."
Then there emerged the same plump nurse as the day before, and the boisterous game came to an end. Parents and son followed the nurse into the hospital.
It was another morning, about a week later, that Lin Deshun saw the young couple emerge from the hospital. They were walking slowly; the husband had his arm around his wife, and her head rested on his shoulder. Slowly and quietly they crossed the street and came toward Lin Deshun's kiosk, then stopped. The husband disengaged his arm and walked over. He placed his unshaven face close up to the window and looked inside. Lin Deshun asked him, "Do you want a tangerine?"
"Give me a bun," the man said.
Lin Deshun gave him a bun, and after taking the money from him, inquired: "Is the boy all right?"
The man had already turned to leave, but on hearing this, he swiveled round and looked at Lin Deshun: "The boy?"
His eyes rested on Lin Deshun's face for a few moments, and then in a low voice he said, "The boy is dead."
He rejoined his wife and gave her the bun: "Have some of this."
His wife's head was bowed, as though she were looking at her feet. Her loose hair concealed her face, and she shook her head as she said, "I don't want it."
"Have a little, at least." Her husband persisted.
"I don't want it." She shook her head again, and said, "You have it."
After a moment of hesitation, he clumsily bit off a mouthful of bun. He extended his arm toward his wife, and she compliantly laid her head on his shoulder. He put his arm around her, and slowly and quietly the two of them walked off in a westerly direction.
Lin Deshun could no longer see them, for the merchandise blocked his view, so he went on looking at the entrance to the hospital across the street. He noticed that the sky had darkened, and looking up, he knew that it was about to rain. He didn't like rain. On an evening many years ago, when it was pelting down, he had rushed up the stairs, clutching his overcoat, to close the windows; half way up he suddenly lost his footing, and from then on he was paralyzed. Now he sits in a wheelchair.
Translated from the Chinese by Allan H. Barr
Yu Hua was born in Hangzhou in 1960 and lives in Beijing. A collection of some of his early short stories, The Past and the Punishments, translated by Andrew F. Jones, was published in 1996. His novel To Live, which was adapted and filmed by the director Zhang Yimou, will be published in the United States later this year, as will a more recent novel of his, Chronicle of a Blood Seller. "The Boisterous Game" appears in Huanghunli de nanhai (Boy in the Twilight), a volume of Yu Hua's short stories published in Beijing in 1999.